Apple: App Subscription policies MIGHT not affect Amazon's ebook app

BUSINESS INSIDER REPORTS AN APPLE QUOTE ON NEW APP POLICY ENFORCEMENTS

 That image at the left is by Asa Mathat, All Things Digital, and is the photo used at the Business Insider article, although the image is much larger there.  It's in candid-portrait style, which tends to focus on expressiveness, taken from the ATD conference last year and startling for the force felt from that face.

I dropped by the The Kindle Chronicles Friday Podcast site to see what Len Edgerly had for this week, as all recent weekly podcasts are available there for listening.  In addition to the podcast that includes news, Kindle tips, reader-comments, and the main interview of the week, Len has a text summary of each podcast's info with links to specific news and tips mentioned in the podcast.

  While there, I saw that Len has highlighted an important Business Insider article by Jay Yarrow that I'd missed, written February 28.  It's of special interest to me because on February 24, I'd written a blog article titled, Why Kindle books will be readable & sync'd on Apple devices no matter what, in which I mentioned the known Kindle-for-Web "solution" (but one must be On the Net to read the book), and I repeated the caution that all actual Apple statements re the 70/30% revenue split had referred to Subscription apps, and not one-off e-book reader apps yet.

  Amazon does have subscriptions offered in a Kindle app but not for Apple devices, only for Android.  Obviously they've never made a doable deal with Apple for an app involving subscriptions.

  The February 1st quote from Apple media representative Trudy Muller about the rejection of the Sony e-reader app was in connection with Sony having an e-book purchasing-option inside their app, to buy a book from Sony of course, using a transaction outside that app while not offering iDevice customers the option of buying that book within the app (from Apple) instead.

  Obviously, Amazon and other booksellers would also need to comply with any such new enforcement of such a rule, before the July 1 deadline for legacy apps to comply.  That's been a point of real concern, but taking over has been the certainty expressed in many columns that this involved Apple taking 30% of the sales transaction (100% of the competitor bookseller's profit).

  However, it's not clear what type of buying-option had been included in Sony's app, rejected by Apple.  Sony hasn't clarified that either.  Most of all there has been no mention (yet) of a 70/30% split in statements about the one-off ebook-reader app.  You'd think Sony would have commented on or complained about that specifically.

  Applying the 70/30% subscription-revenue rule to e-book one-time purchases would mean Apple was bent on grabbing 100% of the bookseller's 30% share of a sale.

  If Apple did do this, that would imply they actually want all online bookseller apps Off their devices (this is certainly possible now that they have Random House in their iBook Store finally), and no sane bookseller would bring their book-sales app to Apple then, since it would be like 'tribute' paid to overlords.

BUSINESS 101
  Who would put a lemonade stand in a mall just to spend the day selling lemonade so that the mall owner would get 100% of the profits?

WHAT'S BEEN SAID SO FAR, FOR SURE
  But, as I've said often, the only Apple-representative quotes since February, mentioning the now infamous 70/30 revenue split, have been specifically about Subscription apps rather than one-off book sales, at this point -- even if Apple has general rules about revenue-sharing in their November-updated guidelines for Apple-app Developers.

  Since this topic concerns many of us, here is what Business Insider's Yarrow reports about a meeting between Berstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi and Apple execs during that week.
  The article's headline is "Maybe Apple's New App Subscription Rule Won't Hammer Amazon."  Excerpts:

' Apple's new in-app subscription policy might not affect Amazon after all.
Berstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi met with Apple execs last week and pressed them on how the new subscription policy would affect Netflix and Amazon.

Eddy Cue, Apple's Internet services boss, wouldn't comment on either company, but said, the announcement only applied to subscriptions.

Well, Amazon Kindle books aren't subscriptions, so they shouldn't be affected, no?

We've been pressing on Amazon trying to get a comment and the company is just ignoring us.  But, we think there's a chance that it's just not going to be affected by Apple.

Why?  Beyond Cue's comment, we've heard from a source that Netflix would not be affected by Apple's new policy.  We're not sure of the exact reason why, but it now seems reasonable to think it's because Netflix isn't a publishing business.

Don't forget Steve Jobs reportedly said in an email, "We created subscriptions for publishing apps, not SaaS ["software as a service"] apps." (Amazon, for the most part, isn't a publishing company.)

Another reason for Netflix to be exempted: Apple needs Netflix to make Apple TV a success, and keep iPad owners happy... '

Yarrow then speculates on the lack of comment by Apple re Netflix and Amazon and also on the silence from those companies on Apple's recent moves and reminds us that no one knows what will happen on all of this.  I'll repeat that Apple would suffer more from the Kindle app not being available on the iDevices since they WILL be on all the new Android devices and a real pull for consumers trying to decide on tablets in 2011.

But the statement by Apple's Eddy Cue is somewhat encouraging and a sign of sanity.  Signs are only signs though.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Why Kindle books will be readable & sync'd on Apple devices no matter what

PREFACE
What Apple has actually said about One-Off E-Bookreader apps so far and what it has said about Subscription-Content apps

What we've read, for the most part, is what an online news-site paraphrased from whatever Apple said and then interpreted in an extended way as fact, which was repeated by other sites by the hundreds (although ultimately they could still be right if Apple does prove quite that self-destructive and actually tries to apply their 70/30% rule to ebookstore non-subscription, one-off book-sale apps).

We've had quite an uproar since the Apple press release about Subscription-Content Apps on February 15.
  In the meantime, many of the quotations we've seen on the general rules of Apple were put into place in November 2010 and are accessible to App developers only, as guidelines for their apps.

However, 3 months after those newly edited guidelines were released, there was a "clarification" given by an Apple media rep about the reason for Sony's eBook-Reader app being rejected -- it was given in response to media questions:

QUOTE FROM APPLE REP TRUDY MULLER ON SONY'S *E-BOOK READER APP REJECTION
In response to the Sony rejection on its e-reader app, Trudy Muller said, on February 1:

' "We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines," Apple spokesperson Trudy Muller told Ars. "We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase." '

  [That means an alternative option to purchase via Apple rather than just accepting an in-app option to leave the app to buy at the bookseller's store.  Again, this quote is for an e-reader app, not a subscription one.]

  While that is the only Apple quote about one-off e-bookreader apps, so far, we're waiting for the other shoe to stomp.  Until then, the one-off, non-subscription e-book shoe is up in the air.

QUOTE FROM STEVE JOBS in that February 15 press release, the entire focus of which was on Subscription-content apps whether by publishers or subscription-content providers in general (the bracketed comments are mine]:

' Apple® today announced a new subscription service available to all publishers of content-based apps on the App Store℠, including magazines, newspapers, video, music, etc. This is the same innovative digital subscription billing service that Apple recently launched with News Corp.’s “The Daily” app... [subscription-based, of course]
...
“Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.

  “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app.

[ This is a harsh rule to some, but original subscription-publishers still get 70% share of revenue with this subscription-app rule.  Subscription-content apps provided by an e-book store would be subject to the same split, which would make an e-book store's subscription-app wholly unfeasible because it would leave the online competitor bookstore nothing after its 30% share is given to Apple instead and the other 70% to the original subscription-publisher.

 It would certainly explain why Kindle for Android DOES offer newspaper and magazine subscriptions while Kindle for iPad does NOT.

  Add that the Kindle for iPad app for e-books update was approved by Apple mid-February and it currently offers an option to purchase Kindle books at Amazon via Safari and then brings the customer back to the Kindle app on the iPad.  Apple probably won't allow this scenario July 1, unless Amazon gives an option to do an in-app purchase via Apple, but Apple's app rules allow them to decline approval of any Update at any time and they approved this update.

  Many feel that if Apple insists on in-app Apple-purchases, Amazon could just no longer offer a link within the app to leave the app to purchase at Amazon via Safari, and the Kindle app would become a reading-app only but one which still allows the Kindle owner to sync the reading material with other Kindle devices.]

"We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers.” '

I'm not alone in noting that Apple's quotes apply, so far, only to subscription-content when quoting any 70-30% split or requirement that a subscription-publisher's website not be linked to at all within an app for Apple devices.
  See bottom FootNOTE for excerpts from Mashable and from The Telegraph.

ALSO, if Amazon and Apple agreed to a read-only Kindle-for-Apple-devices app, with no purchasing offered at all, in the app, this would be one solution.

KINDLE FOR WEB TO THE RESCUE
In the Kindleworld blog article on the coming Kindle for Web, it was noted that this web-app will make Kindle books readable IN FULL on web browsers and will support Chrome OS devices, including the new Chrome OS Notebook, as well as the Chrome browser and other web browsers."  Also, Amazon's web app description states that anywhere we have a web browser, we'll see that our Kindle reading library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights are always available no matter where we bought the Kindle books or how we choose to read them.

  For this reason and because Kindle books and the ability to buy them via a web-browser will be accessible on Android tablets, it will be Apple's loss if Apple execs decide to discourage Kindle or other ebook-reader apps for Apple devices.

 They would no longer be able to say that we can read any ebookreaders' books on Apple devices (except via a web browser, connected to the Net) and it will make Android and probably HP webOS devices much more attractive to avid e-book readers if people find they can't read Kindle (UK: K3), Nook, Sony, or Kobo books offline, directly on an Apple device anymore.

  The iPad would no longer be much of an offline-ereader at all when the iBook store has something like 35,000 contemporary e-books for sale vs Amazon's almost 800,000 contemporary e-books.

  Today, author Chuck Toporek noted:

' Amazon isn’t worried. They have a solution already in beta testing and it works just fine.  Instead of using the Kindle app, iOS users can just point Safari to Amazon’s site, buy the Kindle ebook, and read it right there in Safari.  No app required.

Again, Kindle for the Web is just a beta right now, so full text isn’t available at the moment. You can bet Amazon will make a big splash about this, though, once they have all the publishers lined up and ready to go. '

FootNOTE - Others who noted that Apple's quotes refer, so far, only to subscription apps:

' Here's The Telegraph (UK) on Subscription vs "One-Off"
Shane Richmond, Head of Technology for Telegraph Media Group, wrote:

' ...That has led to speculation about what this will mean for an app such as Amazon’s Kindle app, which provides a link to purchase from Amazon’s website.  It may be that Apple intends to force ebook retailers to offer ebooks for sale within their apps and take 30 per cent of thosee sale. That would force ebook retailers to raise their prices or lose money.  Maybe that’s what will happen.

  However, that’s not what Apple has announced today.  This is about subscription not sales of one-off products.  If you’re a publisher and you want to allow people to subscribe to your publication then you must offer the same subscription price within your app as you offer on your website and Apple will take 30 per cent of the in-app subscriptions. '

'

  And here's Mashable's:  Christina Warren drew attention to the fact that the focus of the February 15 announcement was on subscription apps.  Here is her take on that aspect:

' Earlier this month, the Sony Reader app for iOS was reportedly not accepted into the App Store because it violated some of Apple’s policies.  At the time, it was unclear if the cited policy violations would extend to other e-book applications like those from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Because Apple’s latest remarks concentrate on subscription content, it still isn’t clear to us if these new provisions also apply to other types of apps.  We don’t know if this means that applications — like Amazon’s Kindle app that sell purchases a la carte — must now remove links to outside web stores.
  The Kindle app for iOS received an update Monday and, for the record, the link to the Amazon Kindle website is still in the app. '

UPDATE - Also note that there apparently is, as written earlier, an awkward restriction with the In-App-Purchasing system in that it might handle no more than 3,000 or so items in a catalog for an app.  If true that's certainly an obstacle to in-app purchasing for an e-bookstore. [End of Update]

It's Apple's call if they want to make themselves irrelevant when it comes to the rather wildly surging e-book market.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Web-based e-books. Macmillan & Amazon will pay Lost Royalties.

The new Android Market and reading your e-books on any device

ABI Research released a study on Friday which said the market for digital content will not be tied to the success or failure of any single gadget, despite the widespread misconception that a single tablet or e-reader could "win" the market.

Betanews' Tim Conneally adds that the study indicates that the market for digital content won't be tied to the success or failure of any single gadget, despite all the predictions of which tablet or e-reader will 'win' the market.

  Google finally launched a "renewed" web-based Android Market that is integrated with a user's Google account, which lets the customer shop for apps, sending them to the various Android-powered devices linked to that account.

' Amazon's Kindle store was the first major shopping outlet to take such a step.  Users can shop for Kindle-formatted e-books on Amazon.com, and push their purchases to their Kindle device, regardless of whether it's a dedicated e-paper reader or a software application. '

  And that includes reading Kindle books just on a PC or a Mac, as well as reading Google Web eBooks via the Kindle's web browser.

Larry Fisher, research director of NextGen, ABI Research's emerging technologies research incubator, said, "The variety of applications that allow people to buy this digital content reassures them that they won't be tied to a single store--or device--for content." Well, with the possible exception of Apple's iBookStore books, as those can't be read on non-Apple devices currently.

  With the new Web-based applications (Google's as well as Amazon's coming Kindle for Web), "developers can post bigger photos and even videos of their applications in action, and the browsing experience is superior to the native Android Market app."


Macmillan and Amazon pay Lost Royalties, and Macmillan increases author percentage
This is also being called "The Amazon Kindle Outage Adjustment, Locus Online reports.

' In a letter accompanying royalty statements, Macmillian CEO John Sargent told many authors they will receive 25% of net receipts in e-book royalties instead of the 15% most contracts called for, citing 25% as the emergent industry standard.

Macmillan will also pay royalties on sales “lost” when Amazon removed the “Buy Now” buttons on all books published by Macmillian during their contractual dispute over switching to the agency model.  ...Amazon has agreed to split the expense with Macmillan. '

Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.

Amazon Kindle for Web vs Google EBooks and a roundup of news - UPDATE

KINDLE FOR WEB
The Kindle for Web demo took place today while I was writing this blog entry.  Here's the upshot, from Amazon, via Bradenton.com.  The new app was "demonstrated on-stage at a Google Chrome event today and will support Chrome OS devices, including the new Chrome OS Notebook, as well as the Chrome browser and other web browsers."

' “Kindle for the Web makes it possible for bookstores, authors, retailers, bloggers or other website owners to offer Kindle books on their websites and earn affiliate fees for doing so,” said Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content.

  “Anyone with access to a web browser can discover the seamless and consistent experience that comes with Kindle books.  Kindle books can be read on the $139 third-generation Kindle device with new high-contrast Pearl e-Ink, on iPads, iPod touches, iPhones, Macs, PCs, BlackBerrys and Android-based devices.  And now, anywhere you have a web browser.  Your reading library, last page read, bookmarks, notes, and highlights are always available to you no matter where you bought your Kindle books or how you choose to read them.” '

NEWS STORIES: GOOGLE EBOOKS (See Update of Dec 8.)
Earlier today, the title at the Google eBooks site was "Google eBooks" but it now says "Google eBookstore" which probably differentiates it from the older Google Books site we've been using but which didn't have books for purchase from Google itself.

Kindle for Web, demo'd today for more than book samples finally, will provide web access to all purchased Kindle books also, functioning in a similar way to the Kindle for PC and Kindle for Macs apps (free), which have for some time made purchased books readable on any PC or Mac and have required no Kindle device).

  Now the Kindle books will also be readable on any web browser.  Does that sound familiar?

NOTE: The FREE Google eBooks are readable on the Kindle.
  See the blog article on converting free Google books to Kindle format, free, and easily done yourself or via the RetroRead website, which does it for you at no cost -- that's all explained in the article.  For a long time, free Google books can be read on the Kindle directly via these two methods, the latter one requiring only a download of the converted file after making a form request for a free Google book.

  The Internet Archive's Books in Browsers Conference (BIB10) that I was able to attend recently was a very timely one, with the sudden access to our purchased (and free) books online via a web browser at any time, whether via Google or Amazon.

I've read today that the Nook, Sony and Kobo owners can use the Google app to read the Google eBooks online via web browser AND can also download the books to the devices themselves (for easier navigation of the book pages), by downloading them via Adobe Digital Editions software and then transferring them to their devices via USB.

Zacks.com
  I'm not sure Zacks is aware of this, as they mention a couple of times in this article that the Kindle allows device usage while the Google is done through online web access.

  They also say that:
  "While Google’s ebook store is available from practically any device with a browser, including ebook readers, such as Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Sony Corp’s Reader and Apple Inc’s iPads, it will not be accessible from Amazon.com’s Kindle."

  That's not true, actually, as I used my Kindle to purchase a Google eBook today and then went to my Google eBooks area and used the Kindle's web browser to read it.  It certainly IS accessible from the Kindle.

  With the free 3G experimental web-browsing feature of the Kindle (on Kindles for 3 years so far), you can 'read' your Google eBook residing in the cyber-cloud from almost anywhere you are, including on a bus or at the beach.

However, it's very awkward and cumbersome to access a Google eBook that way, although once you're IN the Google book (online) and have set your font size, line spacings, justification style, foreground/background etc., and can bear clicking on the symbol used to do a Next Page instead, it is fairly useful for Kindle owners who want to read a book that's not available at Amazon.
  There is no other reason to go through that though.

  But, again, once set up it's not bad; however, those needing much larger fonts can't increase the fonts large enough this way without narrowing the column of text to uselessness, as google reserves space for its various Options on the left.

  While the Google eBook app for ePub E-Ink readers provides the access to the web reading of a G-book, I don't know yet how it handles the 'next page' mechanism (which, on the browser version, is similar to how the Kindle apps for PC and Mac handle that), as it's awkward on an e-ink screen using cursor access.
  Navigation should be much better on an LCD e-reader when reading through the web.  But the Adobe-rights-protected ePub files can be read in the normal way on these e-readers when downloaded for reading on the device.

 Google has scanned 15 million books and are making a few hundred thousand of them available for purchase when the rights-holders agree.  (I did some screen shots and might put them up later.)

  Zacks adds:

'...Kindle allows highlighting and marking, making studying online easier and this feature is not yet available for Google books. '

GigaOm.com
GigaOm's James Kendrick points out that this first launch of Google eBooks

  . has no Bookmark feature
  . ironically has no Search feature  [It does.*]

It also has no dictionary of course, but Wordweb can help with that, for Windows users.

It of course does record the last page you read and places you there when you next access the GBook.

******* Begin Update *******
UPDATE Commenter Tom Semple (follow the link to his thorough explorations of the Kindle and Google eBooks) said that there IS a Search feature and of course there is, though it had looked like a 'zoom' feature to me and I had not tried it out but just quoted GigaOm.

  He also mentioned that 'n' and 'p' (as well as 'j' and 'k') allow you to use the keyboard to go to the 'Next' and 'Previous' pages, which is TONS easier than moving the cursor into the areas of the ">" and "<" page-turn symbols.   When selecting your Google eBook, be sure (on the Kindle) to cursor to the right to find the "Read now" button, which once you click on it gets you into your eBook.   It's good to know that if we can't find a book on Amazon, we may be able to find it on Google eBooks area and read it there.   I have TWO shortcuts to get to Google eBooks for use on the Kindle.Remember that on the Kindle, you shouldn't use the "http://" portion as the Kindle does it for us.
  Yesterday, I'd used 'http://bit.ly/g-books' but the hyphen is placed in a very hard-to-reach area of the Kindle's "Sym" key so I made a 2nd shortcut today, which is "bit.ly/gbookstore" which has more characters than the first shortcut but doesn't require finding the dash on the Kindle keyboard.  And it has 6 less characters to type than "books.google.com/ebooks" and is easy to remember, if you're used to the "bit.ly" shortcut site.

BOOKMARK the google books page once you get there.

HOWEVER, the quickest way to get to a website is to:
  type the URL (w/o 'http://') on the HOME screen and then right-arrow to the "go to" to get to the website without having to go to the experimental features menu.

******* End Update *******

Bookseller.com
Bookseller.com has a "What the Media Said" feature that's very helpful here.  They mention that some were less impressed:

  . Washington Post

' "The company held up support for copy-and-paste and printing, for example, after too many publishers balked.  Highlighting and annotation features won't happen until later.   The same goes for text-to-speech capabilities that would allow Google's reader programs to read a book aloud."

  After trialling the service, it added, "I can only think this store could use another run through the typewriter." '

  . The New Yorker blog
    The New Yorker's Macy Halford in a mostly-positive article, and a distaste for enriching Amazon (he says), writes "faulty cataloging system that Google has used for Google Books since the beginning is exacerbated here".

  . Publishers Marketplace
    Publishers Marketplace repeats that the large publishers using the agency plan elsewhere get to use it here too and adds some info that other reports said was not available yet, but there seems to be an error there:  For publishers already selling via the agency model,

[Publishers already selling on the agency model] ' indicate they receive the same 70% of their consumer price as they get from all other retail partners.  Google takes 10% and Google's retail partners receive 20% (assuming one is involved in the sale).

    Under wholesale terms Google takes 10% of the RRP ['Recommended Retail Price'], while the publisher and retailer split the sale price 63%/37%. '

    That probably should have been that Google takes 10% while the publisher gets 63% and the retailer gets 27%.

EcoLibris blog
5 reasons why independent bookstores shouldn't count too much on Google Editions
 There are some very good points made in this article.

Digital Trends
Jeffrey Van Camp writing for Digital Trends points out that Amazon will demo new features for the Kindle that will “enable users to read full books in the browser and [enable] any Website to become a bookstore offering Kindle books.”

ComputerWorld
Computerworld's Matt Hamblen reported the email from Amazon that they'd be demo'g the new Web app today.

  Illustrating the confusion today around how Google eBooks works
    I originally wrote, while taking notes for this round-up:
    "What's odd is that Computerworld keeps referring to Kindle for Web as a "device" rather than a Kindle app and opines that
    "...it was clear the device isn't ready for sale" -- adding that "It could get an official launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January, said Allen Weiner, an analyst at research firm Gartner.  The Kindle for the Web concept first surfaced about a month ago and seemed like a "natural evolution" of Amazon's e-book strategy, he said.
    Weiner said he expects Kindle for the Web to still run on a proprietary Amazon operating system, something that he said Amazon needs to change to be fully competitive with Google's new e-book system."

Computerworld corrected the earlier report and added this later today:
"Editor's note: This story was corrected from an earlier version which incorrectly called Kindle for the Web a device from Amazon.  In a beta announced by Amazon in September, Kindle for the Web is actually an application for browsing the Web to read first chapters of Kindle books.  This story adds a new fourth paragraph with some adjustments to the third paragraph."
  The rest of the story had very interesting points though:

' James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester, discussed Amazon's ability to let independent booksellers sell books through Kindle for the Web as Google is doing (places like Powell's Books and Alibris).

"In the long run, Google eBooks may just convert more people to e-reading who may then go on to buy a Kindle," McQuivey added.

Google has talked about supporting the PDF and ePub formats for making its approach more open than Amazon's, although McQuivey dismissed those formats as not all that important.

[Blog comment: Writers keep describing Google's purchasable books as "open format" when what they mean is that Google and other companies challenging Amazon for market share are using the Adobe digital rights-management (DRM) system which is then the "standard" used while Amazon is using its open own DRM rather than paying Adobe to use theirs.  While ePub is meant to be an open format, it's not 'open' when DRM is wrapped around it for rights-protection.]

  "EPub doesn't mean anything to most buyers, especially when reading on the Kindle platform feels a lot like reading on the cloud," McQuivey said.
...
  Weiner said. "If Amazon is serious about the device space, they are
going to have to open up devices ... whether that is based on
Windows or Android or something else."
  ...Google has to "prove to be a worthy competitor to Amazon, which has years with a global footprint, really strong apps on every device and a great brand."

"Amazon also has the ability to allow a quick online checkout, which comes from years of experience selling books and other goods online, and is a tool that Google lacks, Weiner said. "Amazon also has a return policy that's amazing with great customer service," he added. '

Popsop.com   Brand Magazine Online
Popsop.com points out that "This is the largest collection of all types of books of different genres and by different authors of all epochs.  Most of them are available for sale in Google eBookstore—but only for U.S. citizens so far."

A GOOGLE EFFECT ON THE FIRST DAY
  And now we come to why that odd image is at the top left.  But I did that before writing too much from the interesting reports I was seeing.
  Los Angeles Times blogs reported on a curious effect of the Google launch today.

A book by a debut novelist ("The Pericles Commission: A Mystery of Ancient Greece" by Gary Corby) came out of nowhere to land up #16 on Google's new bestseller list.

  At Amazon, in a sub-sub category it's visible but barely.  He has all 5-star reviews, although the only-5 customer reviews so far isn't a reliable gauge.  One person with a 'Amazon Verified Purchase' titled her customer review: "A Riveting Romp Through Ancient Greece" and there are other colorful review titles.
  His Twitter following of 1600~ might have helped.  The Google eBookstore ranking stayed the same throughout the day, while Amazon's changes hourly.  I just like stories like this.


Kindle 3's   (UK: Kindle 3's),   DX Graphite

---

Check often: Temporarily-free late-listed non-classics or recently published ones
  Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources.  Top 100 free bestsellers.
UK-Only: recently published non-classics, bestsellers, or highest-rated ones
    Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.